Things got tough, Souhegan football's defense got tougher

When things were at their worst for the Souhegan High School football team this season, the Sabers found away to regroup, fight through, and stay the course.

It happened in the regular season, when Souhegan dropped back-to-back games to Plymouth and to Pelham - at home - in late October.

It happened in both playoff rematches with each team, when it looked things were slipping away from the Sabers, and in both games, they found a way to right the ship.

"When times went bad, and they did in the third quarter, the wind was huge, but they kept battling and they kept fighting," Souhegan coach Robin Bowkett said after his fourth-seeded Sabers held on for a 14-11 win over No. 2 Pelham to win the Division II championship last Saturday.

In both games, it started with the Souhegan defense, and an adjustment the coaches made following those two regular-season losses.

"Against Plymouth, we made a few minor tweaks that proved to be huge," Bowkett said. "The second time around, we made a few different tweaks, but a kind of similar defense to what we were running against Pelham. We were kind of the same but different against Pelham, we just moved a couple of guys."

It worked. A week after holding Plymouth to just seven points, its lowest total of the year and 32 below its season average, Souhegan kept Pelham to its lowest point total since September of 2019.

"They were just playing fast and physical up front," Pelham coach Justin Hufft said. "I thought their linebackers were really flying to the ball. They really knew what they were doing. We had some stuff, we just couldn’t make the plays when we needed to."

Souhegan (10-2) forced Pelham to go three-and-out five times and the Pythons (10-2) punted on another drive where they ran four plays. They had five plays total that went for more than five years, two of which came on the team's lone touchdown drive and accounted for more than half their yards on the day.

"We stacked the box," Souhegan senior Brayden Hickman said. "We had five-man line, which we didn’t have as much when we played them in the regular season. But we played that last week against Plymouth and we saw that it worked. We came back this week with the same mindset, that we had to get after it on the defensive line."

Hickman was joined up front on defense by sophomore Jon Bausha, senior Luis Toledo, senior Anthony Dillberg and junior Sean Reardon, but players and the coach agreed the defense took a big step forward when senior linebacker Grant Harris returned from injury late in the season.

"Having Grant Harris back has been huge the last two games," Bowkett said. "If you play them, you’ve got to stop their sweep. The toss to (MacKinnon) and (Bowlan). Don’t let them beat us. (MacKinnon) will just grind it out and (Bowlan) can take I the distance on any play. We keyed them and our guys did a great job."

After taking a 14-0 lead and outgaining Pelham 172-39 in the first half, Souhegan really needed the defense to step in the second half. The Pythons, who had stopped the Sabers twice inside their 5-yard line in the first half, ramped up their defense at halftime and held Souhegan to just 63 yards in the second half.

"We put a couple of kids in different spots to try to get better leverage on things," Hufft said. "That seemed to help. At the end of the day, it wasn’t enough. I’m proud of how the defense played in the second half."

Souhegan opened the third quarter by quickly driving to Pelham's 25-yard line, but an interception by Kevin Hardy ended the threat and led to the Pythons' lone touchdown drive.

After that, the Sabers didn't pick up another first down, until their final possession when they were trying to run out the clock. Souhegan converted a third down near midfield, but a hold and a run for no gain left it facing second and-19 at their own 47, with Pelham using up its timeout to try to get the ball back with plenty of time.

Quarterback Michael Fiengo ran for 12 yards on second down, and then another five on third down, setting up fourth-and-2 at Pelham's 36. The Pythons their final timeout with 2:56 left, but Fiengo was able to use a hard count to get Pelham to jump offside, giving the Sabers another first and all but ending the game.

"We had a great game plan going in," Fiengo said. "We didn’t switch it up too much. We just have dogs all over the field at defensive line and linebacker. We didn’t listen to the outside noise. We were underdogs. Everyone contributed and we played our hearts out."